Walkways in the farm and garden: Dutch White Clover

After the last few super rainy seasons our farm walkways between the raised beds have gotten a beating.  Where we had originally planned to have wood chips, torrential rains have managed to wash them away to the bottem level and on top of that, eroding the pathways as well.  Since then, we've been trying to figure out how to solve this problem assuming that extreme weather patterns will continue.  This season, inspired by Joan Gussow's garden, we've decided to plant dutch white clover inbetween all the raised beds.  You've seen dutch white clover before: it's typically in non-chemically treated lawns (along with dandelions) and produces a white flower if left to grow.  We needed something that has mutiple functions.  It needed to be:

1) steppable and tolerate, at times, high traffic conditions

2) provide erosion control

3) benficial to the farm by producing nitrogen and attracting beneficial insects and be

4) asthetically pleasing

Because this serve multiple functions, it is considered a permaculture plant.  Sounds great?  We hope so!

Here is a snapshot from Joan's garden...she told us the trick with planting these is to be very vigorous in pulling out competing weeds in the beginnng.